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Kings Hire Mike Stothers As Head Coach Of The Manchester Monarchs

by
Mike Kalinowski
/ Los Angeles Kings

MANCHESTER, NH – The Manchester Monarchs – the primary affiliate of the 2014 Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings – have named Mike Stothers as the club's new head coach, Monarchs General Manager Rob Blake announced today.

Mike Stothers has 30-plus years of professional hockey experience as both a player and coach. He most recently served as head coach of the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League for three seasons (2011-14). Before that, he also served as a head coach – under then General Manager and current Kings Vice President of Hockey Operations and Director of Player Personnel Michael Futa –in the Ontario Hockey League with the Owen Sound Attack (2002-07). Stothers was also a head coach in the AHL with the Grand Rapids Griffins (2007-08), and as an assistant coach in the NHL with the Atlanta Thrashers (2010-11) and the Philadelphia Flyers (2000-02). He was a member of the Flyers coaching staff when Head Coach Bill Barber was named NHL Coach of the Year in 2001, and he was the head coach in Grand Rapids when the parent-club Detroit Red Wings – coached by Mike Babcock – won the 2008 Stanley Cup. Stothers worked as part of Babcock’s staff during the playoffs that season.

Stothers’ coaching career began during the 1991-92 season when he served as a player/assistant coach with the AHL’s Hershey Bears. He became a full-time assistant with the Bears in 1994 and stayed with the Bears in that same role through the 1995-96 season. From there, he took an assistant coaching position with the Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL and remained with the Phantoms for four seasons (1996-00) until taking an assistant coaching role with the parent club Flyers prior to the 2000-01 season. The Phantoms won the AHL’s Calder Cup in 1998 with Stothers as an assistant coach there.

As a player, Stothers, a Toronto-born defenseman who was selected in the first round (21st overall) by the Flyers at the 1980 NHL Draft, played in the NHL for both the Flyers and his hometown Maple Leafs. In 30 career NHL regular season games over parts of four seasons (1984-88), he totaled two points (0-2=2) and 65 penalty minutes. Stothers also appeared in five career postseason games during his NHL career, and he skated with the Flyers in the 1987 Stanley Cup Final.

A veteran of 672 regular season games in the AHL with the Maine Mariners (1981-84), Hershey (1984-88 and 1988-92) and the New Market Saints (1987-88), Stothers played in the Calder Cup Final in 1983 with the Mariners, and then won the Calder Cup with the Mariners the following year (1984). He collected 144 points (38-106=144) and 1,840 penalty minutes during his 11-year AHL career and added another eight points (0-8=8) and 197 penalty minutes in 70 career AHL postseason games.